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Wessex Tales
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories including "The Three Strangers", "The Withered Arm", and "The Distracted Preacher", deals with a number of timeless themes seen so often in Hardy’s work: marriage, class, revenge, and disappointed love. Many of the tales have a supernatural tinge, and all are set around Hardy’s much loved homeland.
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A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day. The Roman veteran, crippled and left behind, worshipped Mithras, so the place became known as the One Bull and down through the centuries it became a clearing house for contraband, a miniature Hell Fire Club, a fashionable hotel, a mere pub. Across the yard, was the church of St Cerdic, king and martyr, who fought the Danes and was famous for the miracles performed at his shrine.
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An enjoyable tale
- By Gordon on 10-07-11
By: Norah Lofts
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Armadale
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Rachel Atkins, David Rintoul, and others
- Length: 30 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Wilkie Collins' follow-up to The Woman in White and No Name is an innovative take on mistaken identity, the nature of evil, and the dark underbelly of Victorian England. The story concerns two distant cousins, both named Allan Armadale, and the impact of a family tragedy, which makes one of them a target of the murderous Lydia Gwilt, a vicious and malevolent charmer determined to get her hands on the Armadale fortune. Will the real Allan Armadale be revealed, and will he survive the plot against his life?
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Listen again & again to unravel layers of mystery
- By Proud Parents of Furry Kids on 10-28-20
By: Wilkie Collins
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Adam Bede
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the 18th century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in "the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis". But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost.
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Very good book
- By Terri Tinkham on 03-11-19
By: George Eliot
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Shirley
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 25 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.
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"As Romantic As Monday Morning"
- By Joseph R on 09-15-09
By: Charlotte Brontë
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Cousin Phillis
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Joe Marsh
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Cousin Phillis – a miniature masterpiece – is set in the 1840s, when the coming of the railway was changing the face of England, and quiet rural communities, coming into contact with the outside world, were changed forever. The story focuses on the effect these changes have on a naïve country girl, Phillis, as she encounters love, with all its pains and pleasures, for the first time.
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Delicate Story
- By Mama C on 01-08-11
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Adam Bede
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 19 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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George Eliot's first full-length novel is the moving, realistic portrait of three people troubled by unwise love. Adam Bede is a hardy young carpenter who cares for his aging mother. His one weakness is the woman he loves blindly: the trifling town beauty, Hetty Sorrel, who delights only in her baubles - and the delusion that the careless Captain Donnithorne may ask for her hand.
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Country tragedy and country humor
- By Tad Davis on 03-08-15
By: George Eliot
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Three Men in a Boat (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Jerome K. Jerome
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1889, satirist Jerome K. Jerome fully intended to write a serious travel guide when he and his two best friends embarked on a boating trip up the river Thames to Oxford. But his musings on landmarks and local history were soon hijacked by his own digressive, waggish voice. And so, what began as a peaceful and edifying two-week exploration soon floated upriver into farce - aided, quite naturally, by a portly ration of cheese, some very bad weather, and a dog named Montmorency.
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Hilarious and lovable!!
- By Erika C. on 03-23-21
By: Jerome K. Jerome
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The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told
- Best Stories Ever Told
- By: Stephen Brennan - editor
- Narrated by: J. M. Badger, Imelda Pot
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.
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A very mixed review
- By Michael Mayer on 08-05-15
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Tales of Terror
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Jack Foreman
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Edgar Allan Poe, the master of terror, wrote some of literature's most entertaining and influential short stories, works that invented or anticipated modern detective novels, science fiction, and the horror genre. Tales of Terror collects nine of Poe's best-loved stories, all performed in chilling, highly dramatic readings by Jack Foreman. This collection includes such classics as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and what many consider his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
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Poe's Best Horror by an Outstanding Narrator
- By Gary on 08-29-04
By: Edgar Allan Poe
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Wuthering Heights
- An Audible Exclusive Performance
- By: Emily Brontë, Ann Dinsdale - introduction
- Narrated by: Joanne Froggatt, Rachel Atkins - introduction
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.
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Almost Peerless
- By Brad Simkulet on 02-04-18
By: Emily Brontë, and others
What listeners say about Wessex Tales
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tad Davis
- 06-08-14
A Sampler
A couple of the stories in this collection have something I wouldn't have believed was possible: something almost resembling a happy ending. I love Thomas Hardy, but I do get tired of the relentless hammer of fate he uses to pound his characters, often with the help of contrived coincidences (or somebody's odd reluctance to speak up at The Key Moment).
Most of the stories here are not happy. Some, like "The Imaginative Woman" and "The Melancholy Hussar," end brutally. A couple, like "The Withered Arm," are a bit spooky - and end brutally. Relationships between husbands and wives are mostly stunted and ill-fated.
So it's not a collection to be undertaken lightly. But there are occasional touches of humor, as there sometimes are in Hardy, and a couple of people who escape the overall sentence of doom. Neville Jason does a wonderful job narrating, as he did with "Jude the Obscure." Overall, it doesn't pack the same punch as Hardy's longer works, but the stories make up an interesting sampler.
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6 people found this helpful
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- nm
- 06-26-24
A master storyteller and fitting narration
Hardy’s a genius. In his works, there’s an abundance of beauty and vivid realism, intrigue and satisfaction and despair. I’ve enjoyed this collection several times now.
Thank you Hardy, Neville, and Audible
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- Steve
- 10-20-21
Performance
Neville Jason did a wonderful job telling these short stories. I truly enjoyed listening to the narration.
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1 person found this helpful
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- S. Jones
- 01-13-13
Gloomy
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Thomas Hardy has earned his place in British literature. Without a doubt, he's a good writer. However, in most of his stories, the conflict is caused by an unhappy love affair and the fate of the characters lies in an extraordinary coincidence, which ultimately ruins their lives. The stories also tend to run on and could have been edited - a lot.
Neville Jason is a great reader, though. I would not hesitate to buy a book narrated by him.
Has Wessex Tales turned you off from other books in this genre?
No, but now that I understand this author's vision of life, I doubt I would listen to another book by Thomas Hardy.
Which scene was your favorite?
My favorite of the short stories was "The Three Strangers" - involving the search for an escaped prisoner in an isolated farming community. It is quite clever and is the only story in the collection that has a happy ending.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
No.
Any additional comments?
A better similar collection of short stories based on everyday happenings in the lives of ordinary people is: Rudyard Kipling's stories of India, Tales from the Hills.
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4 people found this helpful
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- :-/
- 03-23-24
Enjoying the story and narration.
Wish the chapters were just one for each story,
and the chapters were named for each story.
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